


Bedridden

by starlight_brigade



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Soft Boys, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, so very incredibly soft, trigger warning: vomiting mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 22:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16774318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_brigade/pseuds/starlight_brigade
Summary: Dan got sick and now Arin has to take care of him. ‾\_(ツ)_/‾





	Bedridden

He left his gloves in the hotel room. 

That’s how it all started. He brought his anti-germ gloves to every meet-and-greet they did at every con and every event, but this time he left them in the hotel room, and only realized when they had arrived at the location already late. It had been too late to go back and get them without letting down a large quantity of people. So he toughed it out for them, having faith that he might be spared from the plague. 

It wouldn’t have been a problem if he hadn’t shaken so many hands, touched so many things and so many people, so many factors contributing to his current state. 

It wasn’t as bad now as it had started, though. It came on slowly. He was fine on the plane ride home, and he was fine for a few hours after getting back. But at 3 o’clock the following morning, it had all gone to shit, and he had thrown up the contents of his stomach and then some, dry heaving and refusing to leave the bathroom. Dawn broke, and Arin had nudged the door open to check on him, only to find that he had completely passed out over the toilet. 

It took a great amount of effort, and he practically had to be carried, but Arin succeeded in making his boyfriend comfortable, in the bed where he belonged. That is, as comfortable as he could be, considering how miserable he had to have been. 

“Dan?” Arin had tried to keep his distance as much as he could, proud in the fact that he had managed not to get similarly sick and not wanting to ruin that… but seeing Dan like this, hanging face-down a quarter of the way off the bed after some attempts at dry heaving into the trash can that sat on the floor next to him, his caretaker instincts were kicked into gear. He felt like he had to do something. 

Dan forced out a languorous groan in response to his name being called; Arin winced empathetically at the sound. 

He eased down onto his side of the bed, giving in to the urge to reach over and push aside the curtain of thick brown curls that Dan had carelessly allowed to fall and cover his face completely. He cracked a smile at the ridiculousness of the contort of his features from the force of the pillow underneath them — but the smile quickly faded into furrowed concern as he studied said features more closely. His olive complexion was paler than usual, and even beneath his closed eyes, bags of exhaustion that had darkened overnight were clearly visible. He had a tendency to overwork himself, so these were not uncommon, but they were troubling every time nonetheless. 

Arin settled into a natural rhythm, hand running flat in a compassionate track along the length of Dan’s back. “You feeling any better?” There really wasn’t any point in asking this, as Arin already knew the answer. But he asked anyway, if only to judge the severity of the situation. 

Dan grumbled something that sounded like a “no”, but it was muffled by the pillow as he turned his head to press his face further into it. 

A loud, sharp, guttural growl emanated from beneath the several layers of blankets. 

“You wanna maybe eat something?”

“ _God_ no.” The clarity and instantaneousness of this phrase juxtaposed to his behavior was almost startlingly unexpected. 

“You should maybe eat something.”

“Fuck off,” Dan whined. 

“Wh— Dan,” Arin stammered in mock-offense at his tone. “I’m trying to help you.”

The dark brown mop shifted. “You can… help yourself… to…”  
Gears were almost audibly turning as he made a great effort to come up with something.

“...deez nuts?” Arin offered, laughing at the stupidity in spite of himself. 

“Yeah, that’s it.” Dan let out a long, giggly exhale, which was punctuated by a deep, breathy cough, immediately reminding the both of them why he felt so shitty in the first place. He turned back over, his face once again shoved into its rightful place in the comforting fluff of the pillow. 

“Hey man, listen,” Arin said, balancing somewhere between soothing and playful seduction as he leaned in closer to allow for lower volume, “As much as you and I both know how I would absolutely _love_ to do that…”

Suddenly Dan was glad he had his face buried out of sight, so as not to give Arin the satisfaction of seeing him blush. He was so frustratingly good at that, even in situations like these. But the butterflies quickly turned into churning, and Dan groaned at the intense wave of nausea. 

… And Arin had to stop himself from capitulating to the temptation. He had already risked contamination far too much, and there would be plenty of time for this later, when Dan was better. When he could actually enjoy himself. God knows that was the majority of the fun… 

He retreated, sitting back more naturally. “I really do think you should eat something.”

“It is _not_ happening, baby bear,” Dan insisted, refusing now to move at all, lest the ghosts of the past contents of his stomach try to make their way up again. 

“Something?”

He hummed a stubborn negative. 

“ _Anything_?”

Another one, more firm and marginally more annoyed. 

“C’mon, you gotta at least try.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not happening. There’s no way I can keep it down.”

“I’ll tell ya what you can keep down...”

“Arin.” 

The exasperation in Dan’s response to his non-sequitur quip brought a smile out of him. “What?” he asked innocently. 

Dan merely sighed in lieu of an answer. As much fun as this banter was, he was too tired for it. 

“Okay,” Arin began to move away, reluctance obvious in his slowness. “I’m not gonna force you. Get some sleep, okay? I love you.”

“Love you too, Ar.” 

Despite the face that he was only ten feet away, the coldness that was left on the other side of the bed in contrast to the previously-present and oh-so-familiar body heat still caused an impulsive vague sense of longing. A tightening in his chest…  
… that caused another wave of nausea. 

Dan drifted uncomfortably on the edge of sleep for several hours, not daring to move. Sometimes he would be roused back to consciousness to the recognizable warm weight sitting next to him, and sometimes it was empty and he was alone. 

He opened his eyes once, only enough to see sitting on his bedside table a plastic sleeve of saltine crackers, open but completely untouched.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an anonymous commission from Tumblr! If you want to also commission me, [head over there](https://goodboys-inc.tumblr.com/commissions) and we can work something out :)


End file.
